ICRD 2017 is the fourth in the conference series. It will be co-hosted by the Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development (r4d programme, http://www.r4d.ch/) and by the University of Bern’s Centre for Development and Environment (CDE, http://www.cde.unibe.ch/). The ICRD series was originally launched in 2004 by the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South programme, hosted and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF, http://www.snf.ch/) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC, https://www.eda.admin.ch/sdc). ICRD 2017 builds on the success of these earlier conferences.